Topic
Worship
962 sermons · All topics
The Hope and the Preaching
Titus 1:2–3 sets before believers a hope of eternal life that is neither wishful thinking nor earthly optimism, but a certain expectation grounded in the immutable character of God and the finished work of Christ. This sermon works through three headings: the believer's certain expectation of everlasting life as a goal of gospel ministry; the foundation of that hope in God's unchanging nature and eternal promises; and the ordained means by which those blessings are made known — namely, the preaching of the Word. The application is direct: believers are to rejoice daily in this sure hope, find comfort in God's immutability, and never despise the act of preaching; unbelievers are called to flee to Christ as the only ground of any lasting hope.
Of Christ the Mediator (2LCF 8.9-10)
Christ alone holds the threefold mediatorial office of prophet, priest, and king — an exclusivity the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith defends in chapter 8, paragraphs 9 and 10 against any claim, ancient or modern, to share or transfer that role. These two paragraphs, unique to the Baptist confession and absent from both the Westminster and Savoy documents, ground the exclusivity of Christ's mediatorship in 1 Timothy 2:5 and unfold its necessity in the threefold frailty of man: ignorance requiring his prophetic word, alienation requiring his priestly sacrifice, and utter inability requiring his kingly rule. The sermon traces each office through Hebrews, Luke, Acts, John, and Revelation, arguing that the old-covenant pattern of separate prophets, priests, and kings points forward to the one God-man who holds all three perfectly and to their fullness. The practical burden is that believers avail themselves of Christ's mediatorial work through the appointed means of grace — preaching, prayer, baptism, and the Lord's Supper — finding in him alone their acceptance before God.
1 Samuel 7
Israel's 20-year lament after the Lord following the return of the ark sets the stage for 1 Samuel 7, a chapter that contrasts the manipulation of God in chapter 4 with genuine covenantal repentance, exclusive worship, and intercessory prayer under Samuel's prophetic and judicial leadership. Three movements structure the passage: the longing for God evidenced in Israel's lament, the preparation for God through tangible repentance and exclusive allegiance to Yahweh, and the presence of God vindicated in miraculous deliverance at Mizpah. Samuel functions typologically as prophet, judge, and intercessor — pointing forward to Christ, who always lives to make intercession for his people. The closing exhortation calls Christians to maintain their own Ebenezers — Scripture, prayer, the Lord's Table — as bulwarks against spiritual amnesia and apostasy.
The Shedding of Innocent Blood
The sixth commandment's prohibition of murder, grounded in the doctrine of man as image-bearer of God, applies with full force to abortion. This sermon works through Exodus 21:22–25 to demonstrate that the Mosaic civil law affords explicit legal protection to both mother and pre-born child, and that the correct translation of the passage — 'she gives birth prematurely' rather than 'she miscarries' — is exegetically decisive for the abortion debate. The sanctity of human life is established across the full range of human existence: before the fall, after it, in children, the pre-born, the handicapped, the sick, and the elderly — and is ultimately grounded in the Incarnation, by which Christ assumed and thereby dignified human flesh. The sermon closes by calling the church to informed prayer, chaste living, and flight to the cross, where there is full forgiveness even for those implicated in abortion.
1 Samuel 6
First Samuel 6 records the return of the Ark of the Covenant from Philistine territory to Israel, exposing both the sovereignty of God over pagan nations and the terrifying holiness of God that no sinner can approach unaided. The chapter moves through the Philistines' carefully devised test, the miracle of the lowing milk cows, the judgment on the men of Beth Shemesh who looked into the Ark, and the Ark's final lodging at Kirjath-Jearim — each episode demonstrating that God will not be manipulated, conquered, or treated with casual familiarity. The central question the men of Beth Shemesh cry out — 'Who is able to stand before this holy Lord God?' — is the perennial question of every soul that has truly glimpsed the majesty of God, and the sermon answers it directly: Jesus Christ alone, the mediator of the new covenant, who by his obedience, death, and resurrection brings the elect into the presence of a consuming fire.
The Transfiguration of the Son
The transfiguration of Christ in Matthew 17:1–8 is a controlled revelation of the divine glory that belongs to the eternal Son, displayed before Peter, James, and John on the holy mountain. The Father's voice from the Shekinah cloud — echoing Psalm 2:7 and Isaiah 42:1–4, and repeating his declaration at Christ's baptism — publicly confirms that Jesus is the beloved Messiah who must suffer, die, and rise, vindicating the Christology the disciples had confessed in Matthew 16. Moses and Elijah appear as the law and the prophets bearing witness to the one who fulfills and supersedes them both, while their conversation with Christ about his coming death underscores that the cross and the crown are inseparable. Believers are called to behold the glory of the transfigured Son, to hear him above all other voices, and to press on through suffering in confidence that cross always precedes crown.
Past, Present, and Future at the Lord's Supper
The Lord's Supper operates across three tenses simultaneously: it is a memorial ordinance calling believers to remember Christ's humiliation, substitutionary suffering, and death as prophesied in Isaiah 53; it is a present means of grace conferring real spiritual communion with the exalted Christ by the Spirit, not merely a conscious recollection; and it is an eschatological anticipation, pointing the church toward the consummation when the ordinance itself will give way to the marriage supper of the Lamb. Against both Roman Catholic transubstantiation and a bare memorialist view, the sermon argues from 1 Corinthians 10–11 that the bread and wine remain unchanged in substance while serving as conduits by which the risen Lord nourishes and confirms the faith of His gathered people.
The Importance of Acceptable Worship
Malachi 1:6–14 records God's indictment of Israel's priests for offering defective, stolen, and contemptible sacrifices — worshipping with the form but without the heart. This sermon examines three movements in the passage: God's accusation, the people's oblivious response, and the implications of unacceptable worship for the covenant community. The preacher presses home that careless worship is not a minor infraction but a major sin that provokes divine wrath, and calls every hearer to come before the great King with regenerate hearts and faithful, Scripture-ordered devotion.
The Call of Samuel the Prophet
The call of Samuel in 1 Samuel 3 marks a decisive turning point in redemptive history — the transition from the era of the judges to the era of the monarchy, with Samuel functioning as God's appointed prophet and king-maker. The chapter opens with a judgment: the word of the Lord was rare in Israel, a condition the sermon argues is never accidental but always the fruit of covenant unfaithfulness, as God withdraws the lamp of His word from a people who have despised it. The Eli narrative exposes the consequences of passive, toothless pastoral authority, while Samuel's emergence illustrates the mercy of God who meets the absence of His word with a new voice. The sermon closes by pressing the abundance of available Scripture upon contemporary hearers as an undeserved grace, calling both believers and unbelievers to be where the Bible is preached and to receive Christ's imputed righteousness by faith alone.
Introduction to Christology (2LCF 8.1-10)
What is Christology, why does it matter, and how does the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith frame it? This introductory session works through John 17:3, Luke 24, John 20, Acts 5, 1 Corinthians 2, Colossians 1, and related texts to establish four grounds for the importance of Christology: its relation to Scripture, to preaching, to salvation, and to practical Christian living. The confession's account of Christ as mediator — truly God, truly man, two natures inseparably united in one person without conversion, composition, or confusion — is introduced as the doctrinal framework for the series. Hearers are called to approach the study of Christ's person and work not with cold detachment but with the highest reverence and the utmost joy, because eternal life itself consists in knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent.
1 Samuel 4
Israel's defeat at the hands of the Philistines and the capture of the Ark of the Covenant in 1 Samuel 4 expose a fundamental corruption in Israel's religion: the attempt to manipulate God through sacred objects rather than seek him through repentance and faith. The elders ask the right theological question — why has the Lord defeated us? — but then reach for the Ark as a kind of holy talisman, treating Yahweh as a means to military victory rather than as the sovereign end of all worship. The sermon presses the contemporary application that the same impulse toward religious technique and formulaic spirituality pervades much of professing Christianity today, and calls hearers to seek God for who he is rather than for what he gives.
The Riches of Christ
2 Corinthians 8:9 declares that Christ, though eternally rich as God the Son, became poor in the incarnation so that sinners might become rich through his poverty. This communion meditation works through the pre-existent glory of Christ, the hypostatic union, and the redemptive riches secured by his humiliation — justification, imputation of righteousness, adoption, sanctification, and glorification. The application presses the church to give liberally to those in need, because those who have received the infinite riches of Christ cannot rightly remain tight-fisted toward brothers and sisters who suffer lack.
1 Samuel 1:19-2:11
Hannah's prayer in 1 Samuel 2:1–10 moves from personal thanksgiving for the birth of Samuel to a theologically rich confession of God's holiness, immutability, omniscience, and sovereignty. The prayer parallels Mary's Magnificat in Luke 1 and Psalm 113, demonstrating a consistent biblical pattern of rejoicing in the Giver rather than the gift, grounding praise in the attributes of God, and culminating in prophetic expectation of the Messiah's kingdom. The study draws out six responses the prayer demands of the believer: joy in God's presence, confidence in his rule, admiration of his attributes, humility before his omniscience, security in his immutability, and submission to his government.
The Crucifixion of Christ
John 19:16–24 records the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ with deliberate conciseness, and this exposition works through four elements of that account: the setting, the crucifixion itself, the charge written by Pilate, and the division of Christ's garments. The sermon argues that John's restrained narrative avoids passion mysticism while insisting that the physical suffering of Christ was real, public, and theologically loaded — every detail, from the seamless tunic to the trilingual inscription, unfolds under the sovereign decree of God and fulfills Old Testament prophecy. Ungodly men such as Caiaphas and Pilate become unwitting prophets, confessing substitutionary atonement and Christ's kingship by the overruling providence of God. The sermon closes with a call to the Lord's Supper, distinguishing the symbol from the reality it represents and exhorting unbelievers to faith in Christ alone.
Marks of a Real Christian
Deuteronomy 6:1–15 sets before Israel — and by extension all covenant people — seven marks of genuine, healthy Christian living: loving God, fearing God, obeying God, holding to sound doctrine, desiring heart religion, promoting truth to the next generation, and prizing the Word of God. The passage then turns to cautions against apostasy, warning that material abundance, forgetfulness of God, and idolatry are constant threats in every era of redemptive history, not merely in the Old Covenant. The sermon closes with a direct gospel appeal: these marks of real Christianity can only be pursued by those who first come to personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Corporate Conduct of the Believer
Colossians 3:12–17 calls the church not merely to private piety but to a corporate conduct befitting those who are elect, holy, and beloved in Christ. This sermon works through the character of the new man — tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, long-suffering, and above all love — before turning to the three governing realities of the gathered church: the peace of Christ, the word of Christ, and the name of Christ. The peace that rules in the assembly flows from the prior vertical peace established in justification; the word of Christ must saturate the heart both in public preaching and private study; and every word and deed is to be done in concert with the nature and character of the Lord Jesus. The cumulative application is that sovereign grace is not the enemy of ethical seriousness but its very foundation and motive.
Divine Impassibility (2LCF 2.1)
Divine impassibility — the classical Christian teaching that God does not undergo inner emotional changes of state, whether from without by his creatures or from within by himself — is the subject of this exposition of 2nd London Baptist Confession chapter 2, paragraph 1. The confession's phrase 'without passions' is shown to be an entailment of divine immutability, simplicity, and aseity: a God who could be moved, excited, or disturbed would be neither most absolute nor self-sufficient. Biblical texts establishing divine immutability ground the argument, while the phenomenon of anthropopathism in Scripture (God 'grieved in his heart,' God 'crying out like a woman in labor') is explained through the category of revelatory condescension — God lisping, as it were, to finite creatures — not as evidence of genuine emotional change in the divine being. The doctrine is shown to yield concrete pastoral fruit: it protects the uniqueness of the incarnation, grounds the believer's comfort in a God who is most loving without ebb or flow, and fuels doxology.
The Final Charge
The final two verses of 1 Timothy close Paul's first letter to Timothy with a charge that is as urgent as it is simple: guard the deposit and avoid the dangers. This sermon works through the nature of that deposit — the gospel of God, owned by God, entrusted to Paul and passed to Timothy and the church as stewards — and the dangers that threaten it: the profane and idle babblings of false teachers whose contradictions are falsely called knowledge. The application presses the church to see that faithful gospel preaching is inseparable from the glory of God, the edification of believers, and the salvation of sinners, and that the only power sufficient to sustain that fidelity is the grace with which Paul both opens and closes the epistle.
The Lord's Prayer, Part 7
Matthew 6:13 presents the sixth and final petition of the Lord's Prayer: 'Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.' This study works through the meaning, explanation, reasons, and practical scope of the petition, grounding it in the reality of remaining corruption in the believer's heart as described in Romans 7 and Galatians 5. The petition simultaneously acknowledges God's absolute sovereignty over temptation, confesses the Christian's ongoing weakness, and recognizes the power of the world, the flesh, and the devil as constant enemies. The study closes with the doxology of the Lord's Prayer and the sobering exhortation that he who prays as he ought will endeavor to live as he prays.
Divine Simplicity 2 - Of God and the Holy Trinity (2LCF 2.1-3)
What does it mean to say God is 'without parts,' and why does it matter for every other divine attribute? This second session on divine simplicity (2LCF 2.1–3) continues an expository study of the Second London Baptist Confession's opening chapter on God, working through the classical doctrine that God is not composed of physical, metaphysical, or logical parts — a doctrine historically attested from the church fathers through the Reformation and represented in every major Reformed confession. The session focuses especially on God's pure actuality (the denial of act-and-potency composition), the inseparability of God as knower, knowing, and things known, and the impossibility of God being both agent and patient — showing that divine simplicity is the ontological foundation for God's immutability, independence, absoluteness, unity, and infinite love.
The Lord's Prayer, Part 6
What does it mean for a justified believer to pray 'forgive us our debts'? This study of Matthew 6:12 distinguishes between forensic justification — God's once-for-all judicial declaration of pardon — and the ongoing filial forgiveness a child of God seeks from his Father so that he may know the smile and nearness of God in daily life. Six reasons are given for why believers must continually pray this petition: remaining corruption, desire for God's fatherly favor, consciousness of the evil of sin, trust in divine mercy, renunciation of self-righteousness, and acknowledgment of Christ's sufficiency. The study closes by examining the expansion of the petition in verses 14–15, showing that a forgiving spirit toward others is not the cause but the necessary sign and fruit of having been forgiven by God through justifying grace.
Christ Our Passover
Paul's declaration in 1 Corinthians 5:7b — 'Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us' — grounds the Apostle's call to holiness in the atoning work of Christ. This exposition traces the Passover typology of Exodus 12 through six correspondences between the Old Testament type and the anti-typical Lamb: the sacrificial lamb, its unblemished character, its slaughter, the blood's application, its particular scope, and its vicarious nature. Christ's death satisfies divine wrath against the sins of his people and simultaneously breaks sin's dominion, calling believers to pursue holiness as those truly unleavened before God.
The Lord's Prayer, Part 5
The fourth petition of the Lord's Prayer — 'Give us this day our daily bread' (Matthew 6:11) — addresses the believer's daily dependence upon God for temporal provision. This study examines what the petition does not mean (it neither excuses idleness nor promises wealth), what it does mean (a request for all necessary temporal sustenance, not luxury), and its theological weight: it confesses the forfeiture of blessing through the fall, acknowledges that even the capacity to work is a divine gift, expresses faith in God's provision, and recognizes God as the first cause behind every blessing. The practical scope of the petition extends beyond personal need to intercession for fellow believers, the suffering church, and the persecuted worldwide.
The Prayer of the Early Church, Part 2
Acts 4:29–31 presents the early church's prayer as a model for Christian supplication: addressed to the sovereign Creator, Revelator, and Governor of all things, and shaped by three specific requests — the administration of justice against gospel opposition, boldness to proclaim Christ regardless of human threat, and continued confirmation of apostolic preaching through the miraculous. The sermon then traces God's threefold response: an indication of his presence in the shaking of the place, the filling of the Holy Spirit, and the provision of courage that immediately issued in bold gospel proclamation. The chief application is that Christians must follow this pattern — coming to God in humble recognition of who he is, praying for justice, courage, and vindication of the word, and trusting that God gives strength and boldness to his people rather than stirring up those things from within themselves.
The Prayer of the Early Church, Part 1
Acts 4:24–28 records the early church's response to persecution: a corporate prayer that grounds confidence not in circumstances but in the character of God. The sermon traces three foundations of the congregation's confidence — God as sovereign creator, God as sovereign revelator (particularly through Psalm 2), and God as sovereign predeterminer and governor of all things — showing that the church's unity is a gospel-defined unity, not a generic sociological bond. The exposition presses these truths against fleshly anxiety, open theism, and the therapeutic impulse to find comfort in a God who co-suffers, calling the congregation to bring their petitions to the immutable, impassible God who has decreed all things and governs them for the good of his people.
Of God and the Holy Trinity (2LCF 2.1-3)
The doctrine of the Trinity — one divine and infinite being in whom there are three subsistences, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — is not a speculative ivory-tower abstraction but the foundation of all Christian communion with God and comfortable dependence upon him. This session in the study of 2LCF Chapter 2 continues the examination of paragraph three, working through the personal distinctions of generation, filiation, and spiration; the confession's summary statement on unity and personal distinction; and the practical import of Trinitarian theology for prayer, worship, redemption, and assurance. Biblical proofs are drawn from Genesis, the Psalms, Isaiah, and the New Testament, demonstrating the revelatory development of the doctrine from its seed form in the Old Testament to its full flower in the New.
The Lord's Prayer, Part 4
Matthew 6:10 — 'Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven' — is not a passive resignation but a twofold petition: that God's people would actively obey His revealed, preceptive will as disclosed in Scripture, and that they would submit patiently to His secret, decretive will even when it brings hardship and trial. The study distinguishes the decretive will (God's eternal, all-encompassing decree, which cannot be altered) from the preceptive will (the commandments and precepts God requires of His creatures), drawing on the Westminster Larger Catechism, John Owen, Thomas Watson, and Thomas Manton. Four practical applications follow for the individual — recognizing God's right to command, knowing His revealed will, obeying it, and submitting patiently to His providential ordering — together with applications for the church and for society.
Of God and the Holy Trinity (2LCF 2.3)
What does it mean to confess that God is one being subsisting in three persons — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? This study of 2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith chapter 2, paragraph 3 works through the classical Trinitarian formulation upheld by the particular Baptists, tracing its foundations in Scripture, its continuity with the ecumenical creeds, and the Baptist Confession's terminological improvement of 'subsistences' over 'persons.' The exposition addresses the unity and equality of the three subsistences, the personal distinctions expressed by eternal generation and procession, and the practical necessity of robust Trinitarian confession in an age of continuing anti-Trinitarian error.
The Lord's Prayer, Part 3
What does it mean to pray 'Your kingdom come'? This Bible study on Matthew 6:10 works through the second petition of the Lord's Prayer, distinguishing the universal providential kingdom, the present kingdom of grace, and the coming kingdom of glory, drawing on the Westminster Larger Catechism's answer to question 191. The session applies this petition at three levels — the individual believer, the local church, and the civil order — pressing the congregation toward a kingdom mindset that is expressed in doctrine, churchmanship, evangelistic prayer, and loyalty to the reign of Christ.
The Danger of Covetousness
Covetousness is condemned throughout Scripture not because possessions are evil but because the love of money and the pursuit of riches displace God as the supreme object of the heart's devotion. Expounding 1 Timothy 6:6–10, this sermon distinguishes between the lawful possession of wealth (which Paul nowhere forbids) and the idolatrous craving for it (which Paul calls a root of all kinds of evil and warns leads to destruction and perdition). Godliness with contentment is set forth as the great gain that exposes the false teachers' mercenary religion as a counterfeit, while the positive commands to labor diligently, give generously, and seek God's kingdom first are offered as the practical antidotes to a covetous spirit.